


postscript and aftermath

by ohwickedsoul



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25344166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwickedsoul/pseuds/ohwickedsoul
Summary: Asahi stares at Nishinoya's hands instead, fine boned and still beat up from volleyball, the cuticles bitten at and two fingers still taped."Thursday's child has far to go," Nishinoya says, mouth still ticked upward. "But I'll come back." his knees knock against Asahi's like a metronome. He can never keep still. "Promise.""Right," Asahi says. "Well then."
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 18
Kudos: 100





	postscript and aftermath

Nishinoya Yuu leaves Japan on a Thursday and Asahi doesn't see him again for three years.

Asahi is ensconced in Tokyo at this point, halfway through his second year in his design program, and Nishinoya comes by to see him before he leaves. He's half a year out of high school, eyes just as bright, hair just as wild. He's still high off a nationals win.

Asahi has settled, somewhat. In a city like Tokyo he is no longer a dark spot, a too long, too thick smear of paint, an impasto pastel, in Miyagi's countryside. There are other men with his build, other would-be gangsters and possible yakuza members and he is no longer an outlier, no longer something shocking. The lack of constant scrutiny changes him more than he thought it would. 

When he stands, his shoulders are relaxed, not slumped. He's still a little bit of an anxious mess. He still has a heart of glass. He still feels smaller than Noya, always. But Noya has always been larger than life, a soul as big as the moon and full of sparks.

Asahi lets him in, lets him bounce around his dorm room- draped in swathes of fabric and sending sketches and notes flying like snow. He lets him meet and charm his friends at uni in equal measure. He lets Noya drag him to one more bar, Asahi, please, it's my last night.

The last one they go to feels soft around the edges, warm, closed off. They're playing jazz, of all things. Noya brightens when he hears the strains of music from the street, and drags him in by one hand. Asahi laughs, tells Noya it doesn't seem like his scene. 

Noya grins up at him, smile a streak of white in the gloom. "I'm a man of culture, Azumane," he says.

He immediately ruins this statement by asking the bartender for a blowjob, and Asahi chokes on the beer he ordered. When the bartender slides over a shot glass of white liquid, he gives Asahi a judgemental eyebrow.

Asahi burns red, orders two more beers so they don't have to come back up, and throws way too much money on the bar. He hustles Noya off to a secluded booth as far from the bar as they can get. They end up near a speaker, and so they lean in towards each other in order to talk.

Noya throws back his shot with considerable aplomb and accepts the beer Asahi bought him with grace. There's always been a kind of grace to him, a surety to his movements that Asahi's admired and envied in equal measure. Nishinoya is loud and bright and sometimes too much, but he fills out his body to the utmost.

No more, no less, like the most perfect pair of gloves. Asahi feels like he sits constantly in a too large sack of skin, like he's holding it up via a series of too complicated wires and pulleys. He envies Noya's ease in his own body.

"Hey," Noya says. "It's midnight." He's right. It's Thursday. Noya leaves today.

"Your flights in a few hours," Asahi says.

Noya shrugs. "Yeah, but I can sleep on the plane. Long flight to Europe." 

Because Noya is going to Europe, far away from Japan, from Asia, from Asahi. He's going to backpack around the continent for a few months.

In his words, he's going to "see what happens." Asahi is terrified and excited for him in equal measure. Asahi opens his mouth, to say something about Noya's passport, or maybe his ticket, and what comes out instead is, "Will you come back?"

Noya looks at him, eyes dark and wide in the dimness of the bar. He doesn't say anything for a moment, long enough that Asahi goes red again, opens his mouth to stutter out something to break the tension, bring it back to where they've always rested.

"You know, there's a weird western rhyme we studied in English once," Noya says instead of literally anything else Asahi expected. 

"Oh?" Asahi croaks.

"Something like, what days of the week you were born mean different things." Noya says, and he's still _looking_ at Asahi. "I leave tomorr- today," he corrects. "Thursday. Was born on Thursday, too." 

Asahi swallows. "What does Thursday mean?" Nishinoya's mouth quirks up at that, and something about the faint dimple in his cheek, the crooked twitch of a wide, plush mouth strikes Asahi in a way he doesn't want to think about.

He's focused on the way Nishinoya's hair is drooping a little, a strand curling under his ear rebelliously, the way his drink dripping condensation, the way their knees are pressed together under the table, Noya's jumping every few seconds. Maybe not that. Asahi stares at Nishinoya's hands instead, fine boned and still beat up from volleyball, the cuticles bitten at and two fingers still taped.

"Thursday's child has far to go," Nishinoya says, mouth still ticked upward. "But I'll come back." his knees knock against Asahi's like a metronome. He can never keep still. "Promise."

"Right," Asahi says. "Well then." 

They leave after finishing their drinks, and Asahi lets Noya have the bed and sleeps on the futon, and stares at the ceiling for a very long time. He takes Noya to the airport in the morning, and is the one to see him off.

Thursday. Far to go.

And so three years go by. Asahi graduates, and gets a job, and he's always liked clothes, liked fashion, and knowing the way things get put together. Why the drape is the way it is, how to set a sleeve, how to disguise or bring out a body part, the curve of a leg, a shoulder. It's more satisfying than he expects. He's not extraordinary, not particularly avant-garde, but he's got a little bit of a reputation for his tailoring, of the minimalism and focus on the human form. 

He and Noya keep in touch. Long e-mails, short video calls, the occasional short text. They're sporadic.

Sometimes Asahi will get three long essays via e-mail- almost no punctuation other than exclamation points, a video call, and a barrage of memes in two days. Sometimes they'll go weeks without anything more than liking a photo on instagram.

Noya's fishing in Italy when Kageyama and Hinata play their professional game against each other. Asahi misses him like a phantom limb, but the other former third years- Daichi, Suga, Kiyoko- bolster him, keep him upright. As does Tanaka, the crazy bastard. He has Noya on video call and Kiyoko on his arm and he's solid in a way that Asahi can feel down to his bones. 

It's insanity, and Asahi loses his voice, feels the sting on his palm for days afterward. Tanaka cuffs Asahi upside the head on their way out, tells him with a smirk that softens into a smile that he's been hearing more about Asahi from Noya than from Asahi himself. Asahi goes red, promises to call more, and doesn't think about it. He goes back and fills a sketchbook with ideas for athletic wear and athleisure, half drawn images with too heavy handed celestial imagery. He likes it anyway.

Asahi gets a postcard a few weeks later, from Greece. "See you in two weeks" is all it says, and a familiar scribbled signature. He checks the date. It was sent eleven days ago. Three days till Noya comes home.

Asahi runs his hands through his hair and takes off work.

Noya lands on a Friday, tanned and red around the eyes and hair down. It makes him look younger, even as Asahi catalogues new wrinkles around his eyes. Asahi spots him first, this stranger-not-a-stranger with the backpack bigger than he is.

"Noya!" he says, loud and uncaring, waving his arm above his head, glad for his height. Noya turns on his heel and makes a beeline towards him. Asahi's grinning as he approaches, almost unconsciously. it's been _three years_.

Noya stops on a dime in front of Asahi, slings his too-big pack in front of him, steps on top of it like a step stool, takes Asahi's face into his hands and kisses him.

"Right," Noya says after he pulls back like he hasn't just totally turned Asahi's world upside down. "I need a shower, like, yesterday." 

"Right," Asahi says, a little dazed. Noya's still standing on his stupid backpack, still not eye level with Asahi. Noya just kissed him.

Asahi shakes his head. "Right," Asahi says again, and then he says, "Wait, no," and watches Noya's face drop for a split second before Asahi cups a hand around the back of his neck and drags him back in.

Asahi's learned to read people very, very well from everyone being overwhelmingly nervous of him all the time, and he learned to read Noya very, very well because he was the first one who wasn't. The past three years have given him a lot of time to think. If Noya wants to jump in feet first, god damnit, Asahi won't let him do it alone, at least.

When Asahi releases him, Noya looks a little shell shocked for maybe the first time in his life. "Right," he says. 

Asahi laughs. "I think we covered that." 

"Who are you and what have you done with Asahi," Noya accuses, eyes narrowed. "Where is my glass hearted ace."

Noya hops off the bag, shoulders it again. Asahi shrugs. "The fashion industry helped with that." 

Noya shakes his head. "I'm forever impressed they didn't eat you alive," and just like that it's easy, it's automatic, it's like three years in the blink of an eye.

Asahi takes Noya home and lets him shower, but Friday is for loving and giving and Noya does, makes up for every time he texted Asahi that he was going to a different county, every text that he wasn't coming back yet, every absence a kiss pressed wherever he could reach.

"What day were you born?" Noya asks, seated in Asahi's lap. He's so small, compared to Asahi, lean and corded with wiry strength but Asahi is sort of embarrassed of how enamored he is of their size difference. His palm wraps around Noya's hip, fingers nearly reaching his spine.

"Wednesday, I think?" Asahi says.

"Full of woe," Noya nods with the air of a professional.

"Sounds about right," Asahi says, and pulls Noya back in for another kiss by his hips. 

Noya leads the show, like he always does, and Asahi is more than okay with that when it leads to Noya lowering himself down on Asahi, making these gasping little breaths that knock Asahi flat on his back, his own eyes wide, afraid to blink. 

It doesn't last long, a little quick and messy and dragged out at the end as jet lag manages to slap Noya upside the head in the middle of sex. Ends with Asahi rolling them over, gentle as he can, and finishing Noya off, hand moving quick and a little rough. He cries out, high pitched and sharp when he comes. Asahi finishes a minute later, keeping himself from crushing Noya on trembling arms, head bent and his hair curtaining both their faces. 

Noya strokes his arm and murmurs at him, low nonsense things while his eyes, half lidded and sated and still keen despite the jet lag, never leave Asahi's face. 

He has to almost carry Noya to _another_ shower as the latter bitches about jet lag. They're back in bed- sharing, this time, in Asahi's real grown up Tokyo apartment versus sleeping separately in a dorm. Noya's almost asleep, the time difference and sex too much to stay awake. "Kept my promise," he mumbles, sleepy and wet hair sticking to his cheek. His blonde streak has a half inch of root growing in. Asahi will help him re-bleach it tomorrow. 

Asahi presses his lips together. "Far to go, far to come back." he says. "You did."

Noya falls asleep, and Asahi detangles himself to go cry in the bathroom for a couple minutes. He's still got a glass heart. He comes back though, just like Noya did.

Noya's got to call Tanaka, and Asahi is pretty sure he owes Suga money since Noya kissed him first, and Noya has to find a job that's not deep sea fishing, or goat herding, or cherry picking, or any of the other weird transitional jobs he's held. Asahi's not worried.

It'd be hard to worry right now, with Noya sleeping and shirtless in his bed, in Japan, the last of Friday's gold light seeping through the blinds. Asahi shuts them fully and gets in bed. Saturday's child works hard for his living, but that's tomorrow, and right now, they sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> hi kids!!!
> 
> i finally have entered the haikyuu fandom (writing wise, i been here for a hot minute otherwise) and i'm fucking PUMPED. 
> 
> i'm so soft for all these boys, damn, i just !!!
> 
> [you can find me on twitter, which is actually where this fic originated (as a thread! 18+ please) ](https://twitter.com/ohwickedsoul)
> 
> [and i'm also on tumblr!](https://ohwickedsoul.tumblr.com/)
> 
> as always, your comments make my day and really keep me writing. stay safe, stay healthy, and be good.


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